Two Cents

Regular readers of this blog have probably noticed we talk a lot about the brave new world of social media around here. After all, as somebody much more clever than I said some time ago, markets are conversations, and no longer are marketers in full control of their brand and consumer interactions with their products and services.

We have been offering our clients solutions for their social media needs for some time. But the amount of social media work we are now doing necessitates another expansion of the BCM ID team. We are pleased to announce the appointment of Anthony Dever as Social Media Manager.

So, what does a Social Media Manager do? Anthony will primarily be listening and responding to the masses of ‘virtual chatter’ out there about our client’s brands and campaigns within all forms of social media. He’ll be teaming with ID strategists, developers, designers and channel planners to ensure we harness the power of social media for all BCM clients.

Anthony is an experienced blogger, social media commentator and consultant, specialising in blogging content and strategy, social media networks, and online user behaviour and engagement. He has previously acted as a technology correspondent for ABC Radio, and was the creator and organiser of the TV Fugly Awards (anti-event to the TV Logies Awards).

Welcome to the BCM team, Anthony.

As much as I love hearing about brands doing amazing new things in the interactive space, I also love hearing about tried and true performers. Amongst all the hype around social media, performance ad networks, mobile applications and whatever is next on the hype machine, it’s nice to know most marketers are pretty damn happy with the mainstay of electronic communication: email.

A recent study in the USA by Datran media has found that:

E-mail leads all other channels by a wide margin in terms of performance for their companies. 80.4% of more than 3,000 executives surveyed chose e-mail as a strong advertising performer, compared to 56.8% who chose search, the second leading performer.

When you consider just how much search dominates the conversation amongst marketers, and the billions of dollars in Google’s coffers, this is a pretty resounding message: email works. Time and again the personalised, direct and immediate nature of email shines through as a true marketing performer.

This is of course reflected in what we see day-to-day at BCM. Nothing drives traffic like electronic direct mail. NOTHING. Of course, it has to be done properly, and the message must be relevant, and resonate with the receiver. I’d like to think we do a lot of that!

Marketers’ faith in email is reflected in their intentions for this year: 59% are increasing their spend on email this year, again higher than search, at 54%. Pretty impressive.

There’s an addendum to all this good news for email, though. Brands that haven’t taken the required steps to build an appropriate data strategy, don’t have their database in order, don’t have a clear strategy for managing their customer relationship, and don’t have a detailed plan for how to develop it, will miss out on all the great benefits that email brings. Is it time to give your email strategy a little bit of love?

I have to say, I am enjoying the controversy and media attention that has snowballed over the past week as two now infamous viral stunts have unraveled and become exposed.  Tourism Queensland successfully generated free global publicity from their so called ‘mistake’ related to ‘the best job in the world‘, and it’s now official that the Naked clothing line from Witchery are in fact the modern day Cinderella… only after receiving significant prime television coverage, Nationwide press and became the latest hot blog topic to trot.

With the media’s spin that we as marketers should be ashamed for sneaking our brands into the lives of unsuspecting consumers, it has made me wonder; where do we draw the line between developing innovative ways to engage the increasingly indifferent consumer, and propping up the stereotype of advertising seen as simply shallow sales antics?  Are we risking the trust of our bloodline with reckless and deceptive acts? Or is this the evolution of the traditional PR stunt gone viral?

In this technology-driven and busy world we exist in, it is a necessity for survival that we place our brands firmly in the eye of the world where possible, and granted these recent events have done just that, but what are the long term costs which result, if any? Are we helping or hindering our brands? Or will these stunts just become ‘yesterday’s news’?

In tough economic times marketers face many challenges. It’s never been more important to ensure the communication being developed is creative and engaging. It’s also never been more important to ensure our marketing efforts are measurable and accountable. Fortunately interactive has the potential to deliver against these challenges in spades.

Today Joanne Stone (Head of Channel Planning) and Peter Luetjens (Interactive Strategist) presented to friends of the agency at our twice yearly ‘What Next’ briefing. They touched on the challenges ahead in view of the tough times we find ourselves in. In particular they talked about some communication strategies and media which were likely to perform better during these times.

For those who were able to make it, many thanks. For those who couldn’t I’ve included a copy of the presentation below. I hope you find it valuable.

Yeah, yeah there’s a technology fuelled revolution going on in the world of marketing and communication. Unless you’ve been living under a rock you know all about it. The trade press headlines all scream similar themes, ‘The consumer is Control’, ‘Impending Death of traditional Media’ etc. Even the most conservative marketer is responding by insisting that their communication partners are up to speed with the implications and opportunities on offer. And so they should.

But this is only part of the equation.

You see interactive media is well, interactive. And to effectively play in this space means you have to have an appropriate organisational structure to deal with it. Ask yourself this… who in my marketing department is responsible for monitoring and participating in my brand’s facebook fan page? Do I even have a facebook fan page? Who’s job is it to look out for and follow-up on blog commentary? Do I (or someone in my Department) know the top SEM terms generating clicks to my website right now and how they have changed over the last quarter?

I guess the real questions are:

1. Who is dedicated to keeping an eye on how people are responding to our digital activities?

2. Who is dedicated to listening and responding to UGC about my brand?

It seems to me if marketers really want to engage in the social web, as they say they do, then some restructuring is in order. You see whilst many elements of the interactive communications mix can be out-sourced, the actual interactive dialogue consumers want with you can not. As the old saying goes ‘I want to talk to the butcher not his block’. In the future successful marketing departments must define roles and responsibilities for having meaningful interactivity (there’s that word again) with their customers.

It’s all very well to say interactive media is accountable, measurable etc. but it doesn’t amount to much if no-one’s ‘watching the interactive store’.

Shop blindness has been around for as long as there have been shops.
My pool shop boasts, “CLE NING EQUIPMENT” on the side wall.
My vet surgery’s business card offers the skills of a now dead partner.
The empty leaflet dispenser at my chemist suggests that I, “TAKE ONE”.
Shit happens. Letters fall off signs, carpets peel up, leaflets run out, vets die. The tricky job for management is A. to notice these things and B. to fix them.
But the worlds of government, business, retail etc. face a far, far more daunting, modern form of shop blindness ….. eShop blindness.
Let’s say that there are 30 billion web pages out there in the ether. What proportion contain a mistake? How many pieces of outdated information are there? How many moved stores, added stores, deleted stores,  changed personnel, changed phone numbers, changed opening hours??
Let’s be wildly optimistic and guess that a third contain a mistake; that’s 10 billion pages of faulty or out of date information.
So, as the tough guy said to the punchy punk in the bar, “Don’t start anything you can’t finish”. Don’t build that stunning web site until you have figured out how you are going to maintain it. Boring but true.
A Minnesotan friend once told me that in Minneapolis they have two seasons, “winter” and “road work”.
If you are going to put up a web site I suggest that you plan and cost for two seasons, “creation” and “maintenance”.
And remember, maintenance never ends.